health
Practically every day we are bombarded with stories about increasing levels of obesity, rising incidences of diabetes, higher risks of developing heart disease. Stories circulate about what is the next super food, what pill you can pop to avert obesity and what foods should be avoided to prevent behavioral problems. Is it worth taking an intolerance test to check if what you eat is making you ill? Is there any point in taking supplements or are they just expensive urine? Food labelling is confusing yet with people only spending 20 minutes a day preparing food compared to two hours in 1980, how can we make the best decisions about what we eat? Almost a quarter of women are at "very high" risk of developing heart problems because of their weight and GPs are doling out more than one million prescriptions for obesity drugs a year yet the number of obese adults is up by 50% over the last ten years, whilst one in six children between ages two to 15 are classed as obese, up from one in 10.
Gill Fine, director of consumer choice and dietary health at the Food Standards Agency says what is important is "that people had good information about nutrition though better education," and Betty McBride, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "Behaviour change by living a healthier lifestyle is the key to treating and preventing obesity. We face a stark choice - embrace a healthier lifestyle now or surrender to a nightmare future in which people rely on constant medication to treat an entirely preventable condition."
So how do we navigate our way through all these conflicting stories to find our own route to a healthier lifestyle and how do we educate ourselves about nutrition? One of the UK’s leading nutrition experts, Patrick Holford, can help us find the answers.
Patrick says, “Often what you read in the press or hear in the news is confusing. Messages are conflicting and it can seem very complicated to work out what you need to do to be healthy, to the point where you may just feel like throwing in the towel and living off a diet of takeaways! I want to get the message across about how to achieve not only a healthy lifestyle, but 100% health. One of the first steps people can take is filling out my free health assessment which will help them focus on the areas they need to addressâ€.
In a nutshell Patrick’s top tips for a healthy lifestyle are:
Minimise sugar, choosing slow-releasing carbohydrates – oats, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, apples and pears are best, not bananas, raisins and dates
Drink 8 glasses of filtered or bottled water a day
Eat berries and greens every day and minimise crispy, burnt foods, and deep-fried foods
Have oily fish three times a week (salmon, mackerel, herring, kipper, sardines) and eat seeds, such as pumpkin seeds
Supplement a high